You can hang a picture of Marx in your bedroom, if you so desire - I cannot care less. I can let ALMOST anybody have their own opinion regardless of how far it is from mine. My problem with your first comment is your smug relativist attitude to human life that you employ simply to boost your ego by "correcting" somebody who paid with his blood for the right to publish his words. You say that ONLY millions were killed instead of scores of millions. This shows such profound lack of moral guidance that even a militant evangelical preacher won't find at a gay parade. How many millions of imprisoned, tortured, and killed innocent people is enough for you not to employ the word only, as in "only a few"??? Will 10 be high enough? What about 17, 22, 25? These are the numbers of milions of people, who, acording to various estimates, vanished in the GULag. Mind you, those were not nice quick deaths, either. So, please, do not be obtuse on top of being smug when trying to defend your position by the right to express yourself and to blame me of intolerance for other people's opinion. Others are fine, but it seems that you wanted to be reminded that I called you a moron.

With all due respect, i notice a certain shortsightness in your report. The manifesto, and the enslaving of half humankind, was a necessary cost humanity had to pay to try out a revolutionary idea. Additonally, leaningg too far right and puting too much faith in capitalism, free will, and democracy might also prove to be self defeating. an most critics of capitalism from the right and for the left, are in the business of making money using their talent and prestige, like the rest of us. Of course, there is no solution perhaps, but the new sciences of complexity and evolutionary biology do offer some insights.

Accusing Marx and Engels for the atrocities of the left totalitarian regimes is the worst part of the article demonstrating, I have to say it, the author's lack of objectivity and some basic knowledge of history. Marx is certainly a luminaryworth studying and can serve as an inspiration even today-no Stalin can change that(as no US invasion of Iraq can change the fact that the US was a more democratic regime than USSR.) A great and intriguing point in the article is the mentioning of the fact that many academics attack the state that funds them. This often seems to be the case, as Marxist or radical left-wing professors at US universities show. Yet, I would not consider this contradictory at all. On the other hand, I think it is worth pointing out that this could also be perceived as more subtle control(instead of direct confrontation). The academics recognize the limits to their radical opposition (thus remaining "radical" while actually not being so), and their "radicalism" is just a confirmation that a truly democratic regime is in place, and their voices are swallowed in the cacophony of democracy.

Well said about how political correctness makes the main articles in The Economist and elsewhere weak.

I also agree with your point that you enjoy the robust debates in the "Reader's Comments" section.

I too find the comments strengthen the main articles.

Too bad you get guys who can't stand those who disagree with them, and think the end of the world has come if, as well as praising Solzhenitsyn's achievements, you find something good to say for Marx. Some guys expect one to look only one way.

Intellectuals offer some sort of political-social-cultural guidance, in those lay societies, or forced to be so, that are interested in debate. With so much China-made Walmart stuff and so many tele-evangelists, who needs intellectuals? I always enjoy Economist's "Reader's Comments" section, and don’t mind getting into some ad personam attacks from time to time. (If necessary, I report abuse.) For instance, outsourcing means, besides cheaper products, an indirect but very palpable help to those countries that do not have extra red tape wielded at the entrepreneurs, countries like India and, alas, China, which in spite of its abominable human rights record has done very well due to outsourcing, and now is promoting world peace (sic) through the Olympic Games! I think these comments deepen the article in a manner that the Economist cannot, due to the “[p]olitical correctness” mentioned in the article.

Doubting is never foolish, BluesChicago, believing blindly is. Freedom, land ownership and the like may be self-evident as moral ideals, however the means of achieving them may not be. Furthermore, the ideas of capitalism are not as clear-cut as one would like in the ethical sense. What is the ethical implication of outsourcing jobs to a country where labour laws are non-existent? It makes economic sense, but the decision leads to this: consumers have cheaper products, while some workers in the same country are out of jobs (maybe temporarily) and those in another work in appalling conditions. Please don't tell me that there is nothing to think about.

Great article and great comments. I wish to mention however that western ideals of freedom, citizenry and land ownership are alive and enduring. Most Americans watch sportscenter because they don't have to wory about the oppression of their government, where they will get there next meal or where they will get their next paycheck. When things do get ugly in America its citizens will wake up take action and reinvention/rebirth will occur. Doubting western ideals and priciples is as foolish as doubting whether one truly exists.

Further, Americans are highly critical of their government, however matters simply have not deteriorated to the point where action triggered.

I agree with pedblan. Just because the cold war has ended does not mean the ideology of the West is not and should not be questioned, which is happening anyway, but on the fringes.

It is true that the Soviet ideology was morally and economically bankrupt, but it does not follow that the Western ideology is not morally so, even if not economically. I am not saying it is, but that's the debate people should have. 2000 years ago the Roman empire vanquished numerous adversaries, yet who among us would suggest that Roman ideology was moral? So with the East and West. Just because one ideology has survived up to now and another has collapsed, does not necessarily mean that the former cannot be improved upon, or even entirely supplanted with something better, more moral, etc.

Correction: the ideological issues of the Cold War are not outdated, but they are still being discussed in 'tabooistic' terms. This is noticeable on Western academic and journalistic approaches of marxism. This is what I meant when I criticized the empty mention of the Communist Manifesto, linking it to the collective horror of stalinism and similar atrocities of the XXth century.

I agree with Sharpsburg. One cannot hold Marx and Engels responsible for the Soviet tragedies, given the fact that many other factors have influenced history, and Sovietism has gone wide from their expectations for socialism. Actually, the mentioning of the Communist Manifesto is the worst bit of the article, since it provides it with a rather outdated ideological acrimony.One of these factors is the secular political culture of authoritarianism and paternalism (aw, the 'batiuschka') that the Soviet rigid institutions were not able to modify, and which has persisted through Ielstin's and Putin's administrations. This situation is corrected through education, which should provide people with ideas of freedom and democracy. It is way more convenient to governments, however, to teach the opposite - it was so to the Tzar, to the Communists, and it still is so to the current political class, whether through influencing the formal education system or by bribing the intelligentsia.

Sir - Apologies for this blurb but this is most excellent article with which I agree wholeheartedly and makes me happy to subscribe to The Economist. It illustrates very succinctly one of the sorest plights we have in this century, made all the more painful by the military and economic ascendancy of Russia, China and certain other problematic countries. It is much to be deplored that there are so many readers joining in this cacaphony prepared to defend or be euphemistic about past horrors. If today's citizens of Russia or China could care less about these past evils that will make it ever so more likely that history will repeat itself.
To The Economist - Keep up the good work, even though the article made me shudder.
Peter S.

Very Good Article. The user "Irreverent Comment", echoes my thoughts exactly. Except the censorship part, it is better to talk about these things openly, otherwise they leave with resentment making it much easier to support or do all kind of crazy things.

The author should reconcile his article with some facts. (1) In recent days, there is a survey asking who is the greatest leader in Russia history. Stalin ranks the first. This somehow shows that the Russian prefer a strong country(and iron fist) rather than "democracy","free speech", which can ruin the country (as they envisage). The West clearly advocating the opposite, with the hope that Russia is weak for their convenience.(2)Mr Solzhenitsyn complain that in these days, few Russian are interested and have read his work. This somehow shows his influence is dropping. Who cares the dark days in the USSR? Russians, and maybe even Mr Putin, knows that they cannot go to the past USSR days, no matter how the current administration perform its own dictatorship. So why bothers mentioning his work? To complement with my first point, they prefer not to speak the truth to power,because a man who can make Russia stronger is in place. The people and the power KNOWS the truth, but the current times are too good to mention them!The same thing applies to the Chinese, although there is a growing discontent with the government and its people, they have not reached a breaking point yet. When things break, the past sins committed will prevail and the power will be toppled. This is when the truth will be spoken.

Solzhenitsyn definitely understood what being a Russian meant and has reflected this in all his works. In a time where everyone was blinded with revolutionary madness in both Russia and the world, he was able to document all that really happened and stood out against a brutal regime. This is why he had always supported Putin and why he spoke truth to power in modern Russia in the sense that he was against the western values of democracy. Russia is a whole different cosmos which cannot be evaluated with the western conventions of capitalism, communism, bourgeois, proletariat, etc. Peasantry has always dominated Russia, and Solzhenitsyn knew this. Peasantry needs complete authority, he cannot succeed in making democracy work. Thus, Solzhenitsyn was never wrong in this sense--the West, whom he despised, was wrong in evaluating Russia.

The two well-meaning intellectuals you are mentioning are as responsible for the Stalinist slaughter as Adam Smith and David Ricardo are for the all-out poverty of the 19th century these above mentioned guys didn't fail to criticize. The pen is mightier than the sword, but how to wear that sword depends on how the bearer is able to understand the words written with the pen. Marx and Engels wanted the socialist revolution - in the light of the Parisian Commune's tragic ending - to be defended against the bourgeoisie ("dictatorship of the proletariat". They didn't envision a "Archipel GULAG" imprisoning and torturing mostly workers, peasants and well-meaning intellectuals like Alexander Solzhenitsyn himself.

DEAR SIR,
your conclusion that the great patrician was wrong about lack of deference for an intellectual,in western society of surpluses and that there there is no sure defense against a bad idea ,appears on the face of it, an advocacy for moderation and freedom of choice.
it may,however create, an impression that you are , advocating an effete way of life.
for all one knows the great man may not be wrong.
thanks. PRAVIN SHARMA